Tosh.0 Taping Recap

by Violet

My sister-in-law, Valerie, had been on the wait list for a Tosh.0 taping for over 2 years. After she had been on the wait list for about a year, she got an email saying that tickets were available. However, it wasn’t until 45 minutes after receiving the email that she was able to try to sign up for the tickets, but by then, they were all gone! Then about another year later (a couple weeks ago), she got the email saying tickets were available again. This time, she saw the email right after it came in, so she immediately signed up for tickets, and was successful!

The taping was on Thursday, August 21. Valerie picked me up from work in West LA at 4:00pm, and we headed straight to Culver City to get in line. The dress code was “hip, upscale attire,” so I just left my work slacks on, changed into a different shirt, and brought a leather jacket in case it was cold. Valerie wore a dress.  Unfortunately, although the studio was less than 6 miles away, it took 45 minutes to get there. That’s LA traffic for you. When she said it was in Culver City, I had thought might be at Sony Studios. But it was in some random industrial area. When we got in line, which was in a tiny parking lot, around 4:45pm, Valerie estimated that there were about 50 people already in line, though the “Arrive By” time stated on the ticket was 5:45pm. Around 5:15pm a guy came around an informed us that tonight was the first night of the new season, so it was the toughest night to get in. He then told us that it was a very small studio, and explained what I had read on Yelp, which was that they first let in any VIPs, then they let in people who have gotten turned away from a previous show for it being too full, and then they let our line in – so he didn’t want to get our hopes up that we would be getting in.

A few minutes later, they started checking everyone in. They checked our tickets and IDs, and wrote down the number of where we were in line – we were 47 and 48. I had read on Yelp that they send out 150 tickets for each show, but they only actually let in about 115 people, about 30 of which are standing room only. Of course, this is after they let in the VIPs and return guests, so we weren’t exactly sure what our chances would be. Then we went over to a table to have our bags checked. For some reason they wanted to look inside our Altoids tins. The bag checker also asked us to go ahead and turn our phones off. Next, they used the metal detector wands on us. Then we were directed into a new line. It seemed they had formed 3 lines of 25-26 people, and turned away a big group of people. At this point, we still didn’t know if we were going to get in yet, because it hadn’t yet reached the cutoff point for VIPs and returnees to arrive. Every time we saw a group of people being escorted to the front of the line, our hearts sank just a little, because we knew that meant we were getting pushed back in line that much more.

A little after 6:00pm, they started letting us in, line by line, to use the restroom. They started off with Line 1, then our line, Line 2. The girls and guys each formed a separate line near the entrance of the building, and for every person of a certain gender that came out, that number of people were allowed in. Of course, the guy line disappeared quickly, and the girl line was still long. When we got back in line, Valerie commented “Well, if we don’t get in, at least we can say we peed in the building!” Also when we got back in line, we discovered that the 2 people in front of us had left, which meant we had that much better of a chance of getting in!

As it got closer to 7:00pm, which was when the taping was scheduled to start, they made some announcements, and cut off the line yet again. We learned that the last numbered guest was 59. But they continued to remind us that we still weren’t guaranteed to get in. A few minutes later, they started letting people into the studio in a steady stream. Then it abruptly stopped 4 people in front of us.

We started thinking that was going to be where it would cut off and we wouldn’t get in – that, or we would be part of the standing room only group that I had read about on Yelp. It turned out that the latter was true. They took the next 13 of us in after making sure that we would be okay with standing the whole time. We came in through the back of the “room” which was surrounded by black curtains, and they put us on the left side of the room, standing behind the rows of people who were already seated. We were also standing next to the audio guy and the hair and makeup girls, so they made sure to warn us not to step on any cords, and to stay exactly where they put us so that we wouldn’t get in the way.

After we finished watching the end of the final episode from last season, which was playing on several TV screens at the front of the room, Daniel Tosh walked up to the front of the room and sort of muttered some comments and spoke to the audience a bit. He went over some preliminary instructions on when he would need us to clap, and how loud, since there aren’t any “applause” signs. He also announced that this season’s wardrobe theme is “15 shades of grey.” He told us that usually when he announces the season’s wardrobe theme, he has the crowd go crazy with applause, “like it actually matters.” But this time, instead of that, he was going to have the audience make moaning noises instead, in honor of 50 Shades of Grey. Then we got the show on the road!

What would happen was that we would watch a couple of videos, while Tosh made his commentary, and then while the writers and producers reviewed the segment at the back of the room, Tosh would make some jokes and comments to us about the videos, often giving us some background or behind the scenes info, and sometimes he would just talk about random stuff. Then the production staff would let him know what changes needed to be made, and he would redo the entire segment over – which meant that we ended up having to watch some of the videos several times, and still be able to give the same reactions that we had the first time.

There was a video of a dad and his two kids that made a weird music video where they’re singing about summertime, and Tosh commented about how whenever he flies in people for Web Redemptions, you never know with these people, and how weird they really are. For example, there was a 12 year old girl in this Web Redemption, and he said it made him uncomfortable the way that she spoke to him, saying things like “Feel my skin.” He also shared with us that the dad works for the Department of Defense, which was a bit surprising to learn after watching that video! There was also a video featuring the Lipstick Bail Bonds bounty hunter twins, and he told us that he was going to have them on the show, but they had to chase a bounty up to Seattle at the last minute. They had expressed concern that he couldn’t do the show since they weren’t able to make it, but he told us that he didn’t really care, and shot his own segment.

It took about an hour to get through the whole show, which normally lasts 30 minutes when you include commercials. At this point, it was a little past 8, which normally would be when the audience would leave. However, as I mentioned earlier, this was the first episode of the new season. This meant that he would be recording the “intros” to each of the 15 episodes of the season, which also meant that he would need to change into each of the “15 shades of grey” wardrobes for the entire season. He explained to us that the reason they did this was so that they would only have to use the special camera (I’m sure there’s a name for it, but I have no idea what it’s called) that takes sweeping overhead shots of the audience that night only, rather than having to get it back and do those shots at each and every week’s taping. Of course, the dilemma with this is, that you don’t want it to look like the same audience every week. So every couple of wardrobe changes they would mix up how the audience was sitting, and Valerie and I actually got a chance to sit down, along with everyone else who had been standing. I don’t think we made it on camera though, because I looked at the monitor showing the shots from that camera, and it looked like you could only see the first 2 rows on the left side, and first 3 rows on the right. We were always behind that.

So what would happen with this part of the taping was that he would come out in his outfit, then the audience would applaud for awhile until he gave us the signal to stop. The producers then would say if that was a good take or not. Sometimes they would say that we need to redo the “first half” of the audience applause or the “second half” of audience applause, or redo the whole thing. Once it was good, we would move on to what the producers called “goodnights,” where Tosh would introduce the “Would You Rather…?” segment for that episode, and we would applaud until he gave us the signal to stop. Then he would run off and quickly change into the next wardrobe, then come back. {SPOILER ALERT} None of the wardrobes were really all that exciting or funny. They were just variations of grey outfits, some fancier than others. There was one polka dot sweater vest, a suit vest with a bow tie, a couple of button down shirts, a sweater with a square. He hated the T-shirt, and said that was the only outfit he hadn’t signed off on. There was also a certain pair of shoes he had to wear every so often that he hated. {END OF SPOILERS}

In any moments of waiting, Tosh would make random comments to us. Sometimes the comments would be about the outfit he was wearing, and sometimes they were just really random. For example, it turns out that he liked The Hunger Games and Catching Fire movies, but he never got into Twilight. Oh, by the way, he told us that the “Would You Rather…?” for the first episode was “Would you rather give your mother or your father an orgasm?” He gave us his answer: his mother, because “she deserves it.” He didn’t seem to like his father very much.

Anyway, so the wardrobe changes took about another hour. Right before we got to the last outfit, Tosh went over and grabbed some turkey dogs from the staff table and started handing them out to the audience. He said there weren’t enough for everyone, so to share with your neighbor. I ended up getting lucky and snagging the 2nd to last one, which I split in half and shared with Valerie. After we finished the final outfit, Tosh said goodbye to the audience and thanked us for coming. But we weren’t done yet. The producers didn’t like the moaning the audience had done earlier when the “15 shades of grey” wardrobe theme was announced. They said it was too loud, with too much screaming, and they wanted it to be softer and more sensual sounding. So we did another take, but there was some laughter that the mics were picking up, so we had to do it again, this time with no laughter. After that, we were free to go. At this point, it was about 9:15pm.

And thus ended our Tosh.0 taping adventure! Even though we had to stand the majority of the time, it was a lot of fun, and really cool to see Daniel Tosh in person! You can sign up for tickets to a taping through On Camera Audiences, but be warned, you might be on the wait list for about a year. When you finally receive the email, make sure you click into it and sign up for the tickets immediately, or else you may have to wait another year for more tickets to become available, like Valerie did. And who knows how much longer Tosh will do this show?

The new season of Tosh.0 starts on Tuesday, August 26 at 10/9c on Comedy Central. (Actually, according to Wikipedia, this is the start of the second half of the 6th season.)